Sony Studios Worldwide Chief Blames Developers for Slow PS3 Sales in Japan

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Sony Worldwide Studios president Shuhei Yoshida lamented the PlayStation 3's status in its home territory of Japan. However, he was quick to point the finger at Japan's third-party software makers for Sony's current standing, saying that they lack the "capabilities" to produce system-selling games.

"It's mostly a software thing," Yoshida told Videogaming247. "Price is important, but relative to the the value consumers perceive. There are lots of consumers, game fans in Japan, that are waiting to spend their money," he claimed.

The system, the priciest of the three current-generation consoles, barely leads predecessor PlayStation 2 in Japanese sales charts despite approaching two years on sale. According to Japanese magazine Weekly Famitsu, the Nintendo DS outsold the PlayStation 3 by a factor of eight and Sony's PSP outsold it by a factor of three last week.

"What's happening is that lack of support from the Japanese publishers," Yoshida continued. "Not necessarily from intentions but from development capabilities."

Yoshida reportedly also agrees with the contingency of Japanese developers who believe that the West is currently trumping Japan's game development industry by being more creative.

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From The Chatty
  • reply
    September 25, 2008 5:37 PM

    yes, because it isn't the fault of Sony for making an insanely difficult (hence expensive) platform to program for....

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      September 25, 2008 8:57 PM

      Multiprocessing is likely here to stay. It's the engineers and the software that supports them that need to catch up.

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        September 25, 2008 8:58 PM

        the 360 and Wii are both multicore as well

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          September 25, 2008 9:19 PM

          For any modern game, how many of them scale extremely well in multi-core systems?

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            September 25, 2008 10:26 PM

            There will always be new algorithms that can take advantage of lots and lots of cores but it takes years to design, develop, implement, test, and verify them. I really do mean years. Crysis, the most modern game out there, only makes good use of 2 CPU cores for physics and AI (it keeps your GPU very busy). There's plenty of R&D going on right now to make use of the many core CPUs of the future but you won't see any of that stuff in a game for a long time.

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        September 25, 2008 9:56 PM

        The engineers (i.e. the talent) are there. The tools were not and that's Sony's fault. One thing Microsoft is competent at is dev tools and this was a major factor in making the 360 the lead dev platform for most game studios.

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          September 25, 2008 10:04 PM

          Didn't Sony have this same exact problem with the PS2?

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            September 25, 2008 10:20 PM

            Yes but the complexity is orders of magnitude worse this time around. The cost of creating the art assets alone is staggering for a AAA game. And the PS3 is no longer the only kid on the block. The 360's hardware has comparable performance, has better tools, an easier programming model to develop and test for, and Live which vastly simplifies the networking. The 360 has a proven, healthy install base so it's a no brainer that studios looking to cut costs are going to hop on the Xbox bus.

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              September 25, 2008 11:42 PM

              MS also practically gives away dev kits even down to the college level, it might not seem a big deal but MS esentially is making their dev platform the de facto standard.

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                September 26, 2008 3:10 AM

                actually, both microsoft and sony wont give dev kits out to anyone except developers. im on a games dev course at uni and we have tried to get at least a couple of 360 dev kits but they cost around £6000 for a standard setup, not including debuggers, and they ask alot of questions like annual turnover, games made per year etc etc. so they are hard to get hold of for educational purposes. they are pushing XNA instead, but its pointless for teaching as its a specific language.

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        September 26, 2008 6:37 AM

        You are right, multicore processing systems are definitely the future of hardware. However, CPUs which are as reliant upon their ASYMMETRICAL architecture as the Cell is upon its asymmetrical multiple cores? Processors like this are NOT the future.

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      September 25, 2008 8:58 PM

      I'm just wanting for a PS3 fanboy to say RROD or Lame waggle controls.

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        September 25, 2008 9:45 PM

        RROD!! (not sure what the heck lame waggle controls are though).

        actually i own all 3 (still prefer my pc), and dont' particularly favor any one as 'the best', they all have their issues and they all have their things that i wish the others had.... including the pc.

        anyone who thinks any platform 'won' any 'war' is a tard, first for thinking any system got it all 'right', and second for thinking that it would be good for the consumer if any one system won.

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      September 26, 2008 3:14 AM

      the ps3 pretty much has 7 processors, which makes it v difficult to use effectively. the 360 is easier to use optimally as it shares alot of its memory between processing and graphics dynamically. its true that the games on ps3 arent as good as they could be, especially as alot of them are developed primarily on 360's before being ported to ps3. Maybe in the future devs will be able to use its power better, then we will see what its capable of, but untill then, they are just gonna have to put up with the crappy sales!

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        September 26, 2008 6:39 AM

        The reason programmers put the Cell last on their list is not because it has as many cores as it has, it is because of their asymmetry.

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